Beating victim released from hospital

No arrests made in downtown Miami beating

MIAMI - A skateboarder who was severely beaten in downtown Miami was released from Jackson Memorial Hospital on Tuesday.

Rene Betancourt Jr., 22, was wheeled out and met by a warm welcome from his father and a hoard of reporters and photographers.

Family members said Betancourt went to downtown Miami earlier this month to meet with some other skateboarders he heard about on the Internet.

A group of people attacked Betancourt, who suffered a skull fracture, a broken nose and a damaged eye and lost several teeth. The front of his head was bashed in by some sort of blunt object.

He was discharged just 10 days after the beating.

"I'm a lucky guy," Betancourt said.

Betancourt said he does not remember much, and he did not seem very angry. He chose his words carefully Tuesday, not wanting to talk about what happened or the investigation.

"I'm in pain. I just want to go home," Betancourt said.

"We didn't have time to be angry yet. We were just focusing on our son's health. Now that our son's coming back, now we're going to try to focus on catching the bad guys so this doesn't happen to anybody in our community again," said his father, Rene Betancourt Sr.